Is brain imaging clinically useful for psychiatrists?(POINT/COUNTERPOINT)

SPECT helps illuminate the variance of illnesses.

Psychiatry remains the only medical specialty that rarely looks at the organ it treats.

If we agree that mental disorders and aberrant behaviors are related to functional brain problems, and that single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging is a reliable measure of regional cerebral blood flow and thus activity patterns, how can we not take advantage of this valuable tool when faced with complex and unresponsive patients? How can we evaluate brain function unless we look? Otherwise, we are left to deduce or guess what may be going on in our patients' brains.

In experienced hands, SPECT scans can be ...

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